About This Image

NOTE: This head and shoulders portrait was probably cut from a larger negative (known as the "Blockade Portrait") taken by the photographer Vannerson.

The small size of the print reflects the severe shortages throughout the South. Lack of proper supplies and chemicals made it impossible to print photographs by the albumen process, and by 1864 Vannerson was close to the only photographer still practicing in Richmond. By that time, however, he had turned to the almost obsolete process of using salted paper for his photographs

The "blockade photograph" refers to the fact that J Vannerson made four views of Robert E. Lee which were sent through the Union blockade in May1864 to a Virginia sculptor, Edward Valentine, who was studying in Berlin. Valentine finished a small sculpture of Robert E. Lee in November 1864 intended to be sold at a Confederate Bazaar in Liverpool for the benefit of disabled Confederate veterans.

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